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Introduction

Thanks to
my annual pass, I was able to take my family to the Feb. 3 preview of
Disney's newest theme park, California Adventure. This park sits right
across from Disneyland's entrance, right where the parking lot used to
be. From the new plaza between the two parks, you can walk towards the
Disneyland hotels and see Downtown Disney, a new shopping/dining area
much like the one in Florida (but much smaller),

What did
I think about the new park? I did enjoy most of my time there -- it's
a fun place to visit, but I can't see myself going back as often as I
used to go to Disneyland. At this point, even on a preview day, there
just aren't enough attractions to soak up all the guests (around 32,000),
which means long lines. Lines ranged from one hour to as much as four
hours (!) if you didn't have a FastPass. Even if you did, sometimes the
wait was an hour. Here's a little summary of my views of DCA (there are
many more opinions out on the 'net as well):

What I liked:

Beautiful
park to look at and stroll around in

Some
really great rides: Soarin' Over California, CA Screamin', Grizzly River
Rapids

Lots
of shopping and dining options

Some
good "import" shows from Florida: MuppetVision and It's Tough
to Be a Bug

What I thought
needs work (keeping in mind things may get better over the next few months
-- this was a preview after all)

Lines:
too long, uncontrolled. There were lots of gaps in the lines and there
was a lot of cutting and little enforcement. They need more attractions
to soak up the crowds. Many of the rides (especially in Paradise Pier)
are very slow-loading and that just makes things worse.

Food
service: The lines were VERY long here too -- can you imagine waiting
30 minutes for a corndog? We did. Over at the Corndog cart at Disneyland,
I don't ever remember waiting more than five minutes. For the most part,
the lines for food were shocking.

Superstar
Limo: What were they thinking?

There
aren't enough places to sit down, and there's little shade. It was 86
degrees on the day I visited and people were lying all over the place
to find shade.

If history
holds true, I'd imagine Disney will pour some money into DCA (as I'll
call it) to fix some of these problems -- at least I hope so. I can't
see myself going back anytime soon to wait in those lines!

About the
Photos

All the
pictures from my trip to DCA were taken with the 4 Megapixel Olympus E-10
Professional digital camera. This is one of the best cameras out there,
and hopefully you'll agree once you see the pictures.

On the following
pages, you'll see a selection of my favorite pictures from my visit, grouped
by time of day. There are more pictures available from the menu back on
my main Disneyland page.

Each picture
you'll see on the next several pages will be a smaller version (usually
800 x 600) of the original. Under each photo there will be a link to a
much larger version (2240 x 1680, often over 600k) which looks really
nice when printed or used as a desktop background.

If you to
jump ahead in my tour, just use the pull-down menu at the top and bottom
of every page!